So what happens to UKIP on Friday?

Despite my hoping that the 'earthquake' would happen last week with the European elections - and UKIP did pretty damn well to be honest - in our current climate where there is no honour, where very few people resign over wrongdoing or ineptitude, nothing much has changed.

Yes Mr Clegg has come under pressure but he'll probably survive to be the Lib Dem Leader until the General Election next year, when I doubt he'll have much of a party to lead, much less to hold the balance of power. He's managing a process of advancing obscurity for the Lib Dems who have quite rightly been seen as unfit for.. well anything really.

Mr Miliband has been absent from the political scene for months like some perpetually unconscious bar fly why occasionally wakes up to slur 'fix energy prices' or 'cost of living crisis', without much conviction and then dozes off again. What does it say to your voters when you don't include your party leader and don't even mention the EU in your European election broadcast? It seems to me that he's in hiding, hoping that Dave will cock it all up and that the skewed boundaries will do it for him. Hardly leadership behaviour though is it?

And then there's Dave. The economy seems to be rebounding, unemployment is down, they seem to be fixing much of the mess that Labour's ineptitude left us with last time. And he's actually (my opinion) quite a nice guy - real anyway compared to the latest disconnected weirdo that Labour seems to have found. How does Labour come up with these really strange people like Gordon Brown and Ed Milliband who you know would not be remotely comfortable attending a casual social event with real people? It's just weird in my opinion.

But Dave is still behind in the polls. Go figure. Are we just a tribal nation whose people are so thick that they just vote as they always have done despite overwhelming evidence that Labour just (technical term) fucks everything up whenever it is in power? How long will people carry on voting for Labour when its MPs are getting richer and it's supporters are getting poorer? There are as many 'toffs' on the Labour benches as there are on the Tory side. This blind loyalty is just mad.

And Dave has come under pressure following the elections last week. His anti EU backbenchers have been empowered and the issue is rising up the agenda as people begin to realise that our membership of the EU, far from being very low on our list of concerns, is actually among the biggest issues we face, since it affects so many aspects of our lives. I bet Messrs Clarke, Mandelson etc hate that this issue is now being discussed.

And at this point in time, that's good enough for me.

And Dave is reported as suggesting that he could not guarantee continued UK membership of the EU if  Junkers is elected as EU Commissioner. I want to believe that with every fibre in my being, but sadly it's bullshit. Dave is not a poker player. He always goes 'all in' at the first hint of holding an ace. But sooner or later this stuff will come back to bite him. When he doesn't get his reforms. It will obviously be 'spun' as a victory but most people will see it for what it is, another abject failure to get what we want from the EU. Another sign that we will be subsumed into the Federal European project. Dave has no 'red lines'. It will be a fudge as usual and he'll still be for an 'in' vote in any referendum.

And a campaign that will probably win, what with the government behind it and the EU's money (our money) actually promoting an 'in' vote. Bear in mind that if we do vote to leave it would be catastrophic for the EU, so it will be a dirty fight.

So Thursday then? The Newark by-election. UKIP thinks it can win it. I tend to doubt it. Overturning a 16k majority is extremely unlikely. Not impossible but very unlikely.

And what happens if the Tories hold on to Newark? Even with a drastically reduced majority? Well nothing much. We go on as we were, continuing to be ignored by the majority of the establishment. That would be a shame in my opinion.

So I have this ongoing dilemma. A Tory who would like to see UKIP win the seat in order to maintain momentum. Send more shock-waves through opur political system. Send more messages of 'we don't believe a word' to the anti UKIP media. If that happens it would be fantastic, but it won't damage the Lib Dems any further, nor will it damage Labour. It would put Dave firmly in the spotlight though.

And keep the EU top of the pops. It's a long shot. Good luck Roger Helmer.

Thankls for reading.